Quick Look at Farnsworth's Improvement - Updated with 2007 and 2008 Numbers

by Jeff Zimmerman on May 21, 2009 10:50 PM EDT

The professor started out the season with giving up a homerun to Thome and it didn't get any better from that point. After 5 games his ERA stood at a woppin' 18.90 (Wang territory). Since then he has not allowed a run and has lowered his ERA to 4.40. I looked around his pitch charts and nothing stood out until looked at a stat at Brooks Baseball called nibbleness

Nibbleness is the arithmetic mean of the distance of each pitch, in inches, from the edge of a normalized strikezone. Lower indicates "more Nibbley".

Here are Farn's fastball nibble scores for the first 5 games and his last 5 games.

Date	Number of Fastballs	Nibbleness
04/07/09	17	6.80
04/10/09	4	8.73
04/13/09	7	6.02
04/15/09	5	6.32
04/19/09	1	1.88
Total	34	6.65

05/08/09	11	4.48
05/12/09	6	7.02
05/14/09	4	3.20
05/15/09	10	4.83
05/19/09	4	1.95
Total	35	4.58

It seems the Professor has become the student and learned to keep his straight flying fastball out of the heart of the plate by ~2. Let's just hope he doesn't revert back to his old ways.

Update: I had Harry over at Beyond the Boxscore run the nibble rates for the past 2 years is a chart of the information. The numbers are different from the ones above because Harry could figure out the eact equation to get a "normalized strikezone"

Year	Nibbleness Rating
2007	5.00
2008	5.09
2009 First 5 Games	5.96
2009 Rest of Season	5.21

Looks like his first few starts of 2009 were out of his recent norm.

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Comments

wait, you're saying that a pitcher will be better

if he doesn’t throw a straightball right down the middle?

I had my doubts about sabermetrics, but now I know its a crock.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by Matt Klaassen on May 20, 2009 2:47 PM EDT reply actions

Crazy isn't it

by Jeff Zimmerman on May 20, 2009 2:56 PM EDT up reply actions

when i did my farnsworth post last week

(link)

it looked to me like he was throwing more strikes generally… interesting that he’s been able to maintain that with more nibbling

if anyone wants to combine the two giant charts we made on KF…

by Freneau on May 20, 2009 3:11 PM EDT reply actions

I guess you could move it back up

I finally got around to looking at the pitch F/X, but the post was buried and I figured no one would read it. You can add this information to the yours and use your power as a “Manager” and promote it.

by Jeff Zimmerman on May 20, 2009 3:22 PM EDT up reply actions

Farnsworth is throwing more sliders

According to Fangraphs, Farnsworth is now throwing his slider as his primary pitcher (54% sliders versus 46% fastballs). And according to Fangraphs awesome new pitch type linear weights feature (scroll down), Farnsworth’s slider is his one good pitch.

As mentioned before the season, Farnswoth was also due for some better luck on home run rate from last year when his HR/FB (home run per fly ball rate) was an almost unheard of 19%. His career HR/FB is 12.4%, and this year it is 11.1% (roughly league average). The home runs are always going to be a problem for him (and the main reason why he should avoid high leverage situations) and his contract is terrible, but he is not horrible as a moderate leverage reliever.

by Gopherballs on May 20, 2009 4:00 PM EDT reply actions

This and the primary post are interesting

because it probably (maybe) indicates Farns is willing and able to listen to Mac and work on adjusting. I’ll take this as a good sign and hope we can somehow increase Farns’ value where others have failed.

"Well, if we destroy Kansas the world may not hear about it for years." Blofeld

The General Theory of Royaltivity

by kabrink on May 20, 2009 4:12 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

I hope that is exactly what this indicates

The professor is adjusting, my god help us all if he figures out the ‘phase shift’ fastball. May we have a moment of silence for John Bucks left hand? IT’s gonna hurt to catch a fastball that can bend space/time.

by MarioVanPeebles Republic of China on May 20, 2009 4:18 PM EDT up reply actions

here I go one more time

Playing Bob McClure Bandwagon Music

Yeah? From what I hear, you couldn't hit water if you fell out of a f@#%ing boat.

by BillyMojo on May 20, 2009 5:12 PM EDT up reply actions

Were all his previous

at least at the Major League level

Pitching Coaches on his previous teams a bunch of overpaid washed up candy asses?

Honestly. Someone fill me in on that.

Yeah? From what I hear, you couldn't hit water if you fell out of a f@#%ing boat.

by BillyMojo on May 20, 2009 5:15 PM EDT up reply actions

it's the tats

where tpj used to happen but no longer does due to his current dl status.

by blue bandwagon on May 20, 2009 5:36 PM EDT reply actions

He's definitely more cognizant of where his pitchers need to be located

I remember he was up 0-2 on the hitter that lined the ball to Butler at first….he threw 3 straight sliders off the plate to make the count full. He must be in better control of his pitcher to feel comfortable to pitch like that

by GobbleforCyoung on May 20, 2009 5:40 PM EDT reply actions

Nibble it Professor!!

by MarioVanPeebles Republic of China on May 20, 2009 5:41 PM EDT reply actions

like a rat does cheese

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by Matt Klaassen on May 20, 2009 5:58 PM EDT up reply actions

Can we look at Professor Nibblesworth's career nibbleness?

that might shed some light on whether his nibbleness is actually an indicator of something (improvement?). or maybe he’s just rounding into midseason nibble-form.

of course i could try to look this up on my own…

by benfunke on May 20, 2009 5:51 PM EDT reply actions

I can't find seasonal values, but will find them out

by Jeff Zimmerman on May 20, 2009 5:56 PM EDT up reply actions

i found one game on the Brooks website

but it would take forever to research through and look for all of his appearances in some other seasons. FWIW, on 8/16/08 he had a Nibbleness of 3.11 while facing 5, giving up 2 singles and getting 3 outs.

by benfunke on May 20, 2009 6:05 PM EDT up reply actions

I could go game by game, but Harry at BtB has the formula's to crank out anyone anytime.

I will wait to see what I can get from him.

by Jeff Zimmerman on May 20, 2009 6:07 PM EDT up reply actions

cool

that is a really interesting stat, especially if it can be correlated with success for certain pitchers, i would guess mostly as a measure of control (but i guess Brooks/BtB already knew that).

by benfunke on May 20, 2009 6:28 PM EDT up reply actions

He's had help

case in point last night. Billy’s Golden Glove and DDJ’s dive saved us and Farnsy in that inning. But yes, pitching wise, he has been doing better. Just keep it up please.

Bringing the optimism to Royals Review, it's...

by ratherfantastic on May 20, 2009 5:58 PM EDT reply actions

I completely agree....

He was bailed out twice last night. I understand “thats baseball” but both of those( def one) was an extra base hit if it isnt robbed. Has he pitched better? Sure. I like seeing the improvement but he ll never be one that will be counted on as long as Mahay, Wright, Tejeda, and Cruz dont shat their pants a whole lot of times in appearances that occur in small span of time. Just my opinion though. Maybe everyone agrees with this already but I felt i should state it.

by 2LegittoShit on May 20, 2009 6:23 PM EDT up reply actions